Back in 1940,
Fulton J. Sheen published Freedom Under
God. Why bring up a book that is
eighty years out of date? Because at no
time in living memory has there been less true human freedom. Even the idea of freedom has decayed to the point where it is
effectively meaningless for most people.
In former days people
were enslaved. There was, however a
clear distinction between those who were free, and those who were unfree. This distinction has been lost. Today most
people do not own any significant amount of capital, and that is tantamount to
slavery.
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| Fulton J. Sheen |
As Sheen noted in his book, “Power follows property, and they who own things to a
great extent own persons.” (Fulton J. Sheen, Freedom Under God. Arlington, Virginia: Economic Justice Media,
2013, 38.) If you own capital, you are free. If you do not
own capital, even if you are legally
free, you are to all intents and purposes a slave. As Sheen explained,
Once you concentrate property in the hands of the few, you
create slaves; when you decentralize it, you restore liberty. The objection of the Church to slavery is not that the slaves are poor. Slaves need not all
be poor. . . . The Catholic approach is quite different.
It starts with the fact that no material thing, not even the whole world, shall
be allowed to interfere with the right of a person to attain his ultimate end by
the exercise of his free will. (Ibid., 39.)
Not by
coincidence, this was the same point made repeatedly by G.K. Chesterton and
Hilaire Belloc with their idea of “distributism,” which they defined as a
policy of small, widely distributed property, with a preference for small,
family-owned farms and businesses. When
enterprises could not be small, Chesterton said, workers should own shares in
the corporation.
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| The English Sheen |
It becomes
obvious why Sheen became known as “the American Chesterton,” and Chesterton
contributed a foreword to Sheen’s first book, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy (1925).
To understand why
private property is essential to freedom, however, we need to know
what “property” is. “Property” is not the thing owned. Property is, rather, the natural right to be
an owner that everyone has absolutely, and the limited and socially determined
bundle of rights that define how an owner may use what is
owned. Property means the right to
control what is
owned, and enjoyment of the fruits of ownership.
The universal
prohibition against theft (e.g., “Thou shalt not steal”) implies
that private property is a fundamental human right. That is why no one should be denied the right
to own, and what is owned is, in human terms, owned individually or jointly “against” everyone else. What someone
owns ordinarily cannot be taken without the free consent of the owner(s). As
John Locke commented, “what property have I in that, which another may by right
take, when he pleases, to himself?” (John Locke, Second Treatise on Government,
§ 140.)
No one, however,
may have absolute or unlimited use
(exercise) of what is owned. It is critical to realize that while the right to
own is inalienable and inherent in each human person, no one can use what is owned to harm others or
society (the
common good) as a whole. Neither can
anyone’s right to be an owner, or what is owned, be used in any way that
inhibits or prevents others from becoming owners or using what they own.
That is the legal
case for the importance of private property. The title of Sheen’s book,
however, is “Freedom Under God.” Sheen’s purpose was to examine the moral case for the importance of private
property and its
critical role as the prop for true freedom. Even then, he acknowledges
the primacy of rights such as life, liberty, and property in human affairs: “[M]an has certain
inalienable rights which no one can take away — not even the
State.” (Freedom Under God, 74.)
Human law based on justice guarantees our freedom under duly constituted human authority. Divine law based on justice and charity guarantees our freedom under God. Until we understand the difference, we cannot
understand Sheen’s purpose or even meaning in Freedom Under God.
To take one
example, in Chapter 5 Sheen declared, “though man has a natural right to
private property, this right is not absolute. Only God has an absolute right. The principle of
unlimited, unqualified ownership of money, material,
and economic goods is wrong and inadmissible. Man is only the steward of wealth — not its Creator.” (Ibid., 51.)
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| The American Chesterton |
On the surface, this statement is
contradictory. It doesn’t make any
sense. Natural rights are, by
definition, absolute rights. Sheen stated this explicitly: “inalienable rights which no one can take away — not even the
State.”
Sheen’s apparent contradiction is
resolved, however, when we realize that Sheen used “create” in its theological meaning. When we speak of God as a Creator in theology, it is in the sense
of “first cause.” Nothing could exist had not some First Cause or Absolute
Source brought it into being or “created” it out of nothing.
Human beings do
not create wealth out of nothing; we are not Creators (First Causes), but
creators. We craft artifacts using what God has provided us to create something uniquely
our own. In human terms, we own what we produce, and we own it exclusively.
What about this
“stewardship”? That, too, is easily
answered. As Sheen pointed out, the State cannot justly make laws forcing us to “do right” with what we own. Coerced
virtue is not virtuous. As Sheen said, “If
Crucified Truth were
turned into coercive truth, all Christianity would
have failed.” (Ibid., 212.) A revealed religious truth that
relies on compulsion to implement and sustain it contradicts the essence of
faith itself as a willingness to
believe.
That is why the
popes put the whole issue of “stewardship” under charity,
not justice. Our lack
of charity is something for which we answer to God (assuming we believe in Him), not to man.
Sheen was speaking of humanity’s moral responsibilities under charity and justice enforced by God, not legal rights and duties under justice alone enforced by the State. Natural rights — the rights to be an owner, to be alive, to be free, and
so on — remain always and everywhere inviolable (absolute) in our relations
with other human beings and society at large.
That does not
mean we may abuse or misuse our rights to harm others in any way. As Sheen explained, “The right itself must not be curtailed, but only the abuse.” (Ibid., 169)
As far as human
law is
concerned, the right to be an owner, the
right to private property, is absolute and inalienable.
It is built into human nature created by God. The sole exception is when,
to meet an emergency, duly constituted authority may redistribute a measure of wealth to keep
people alive and in reasonable health until the emergency passes. Redistribution for any other purpose is an
abuse of the State’s power to tax.
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